B-17 G 1:48 scale, 351st Bomb Group, 510th Squadron, AC# 43-37862, Fearless Fosdick

[fubar57]

Looking really sharp

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

I had found that it was easier to use the old fashioned tube glue for the levers that it was to use CA glue. Imagine that. Moving on, after my mom's burial, I found some time to get back to work on this project.

In preparation for working on the bomb bay, I added the lower section of the bulkhead that was omitted in the kit. Used a couple of 0.04 thick sheet styrene to make it. An inverted round bulkhead gave me the shape I needed to fit properly. Drew the pattern onto the styrene and cut with a pair of scissors. Glued in and sanded to shape after trimming to the right depth.

Next started on the control yoke, plane's steering wheel, I didn't like that it was molded flush with the vertical portion. Sooooo...... I cut off the naughty bits and sanded the collumn smooth. Then I scratch built the yoke using 0.8 mm round stock. That size looked right. Used 2.5 mm round stock for the yoke center.

The center part was sanded to be as flat as possible. Put the parts all together, provided a standoff for the yoke and attached to the collumn.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Airframes]

Nice work.

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!

 

[fubar57]

Much better

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Well, after mom passing away and taking a much needed vacation, I am getting back to work on the plane. I've determined that there were large oxygen cylinders both below deck and behind the pilot's seats. Now I just need to determine how large they were. Math time. Take the measurement of a known object within the same picture as the target object and create a ratio from the measurement of the actual object. Use that ratio to determine actual size from the picture, plus or minus a bit, of the target object. Add a little artistic license and there you have it. Now to put into practice.

 

[Airframes]

Don't know if these will help - B-17 oxygen tanks at Thorpe Abbotts Museum.
That's a P&W R-1830 Twin wasp engine in the second pic.

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Thanks Terry,

Well with a little luck and some PFM, I've been able to determine that these oxygen tanks in 48 scale equate to approximately 6.2mm or .244in in diameter. Multiply by 3 and comparing the back of the pilot seat, it comes up to the same height as in the photos. I'd say that's a match. . Weird science....now for length.

 

[Airframes]

Measure across form the base of one cylinder to the opposite cylinder on one of the kit's engines, and you should have a rough idea of length.
The second pic I posted suggests that the cylinder length, compared to the left cylinder and crankcase, to the remains of the base of the opposite cylinder on the engine, is almost equal to the length, maybe a tad shorter.

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Great. I've come up with approximately 13mm or .51in in length in 48 scale. Which looks about right. Thanks! What's really going to be fun is putting that fine detail in the ribbing around each of those tanks. It also looks like I need to make 10 of them. Correction... 14 of them. 8 above and 6 below. Cue the Darth Vader sound track.

 

[Crimea_River]

Damn. I walked by two of them a dozen times today and could have measured them for you. Won't be back at the museum until next Saturday.

 

[Airframes]

try making one oxygen cylinder, using stretched sprue wrapped around to form the 'ribs', then mould the remainder in PU resin.

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Interesting, I've never used resin before for modeling. Will probably need to research that. Thanks...

As for true measurements of the oxygen bottle, no rush. The person I'm building this for wants me to take my time. So far so good for details and hopefully will help someone else who tries to build this thing.

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

I had an opportunity to do more over the weekend. First, I found a styrene rod that just happen to be the diameter I can use. Will work on a prototype during the week. I built an avionics box, not sure whst it does yet and there is more to do on it but the box and shelf are at least there. The boots around the base of the yokes was made of canvas and tied so I attempted to make that. Painted and installed the yokes, then painted the seats yellow. I still need to make decals for them and seatbelts. Also fixed up the control panel on the right side as it looked different than the way it was made by the model company. Here are the results thus far. Thanks George for the references as they were a great help.

Thanks guys.

 

[Wurger]

 

[fubar57]

Good stuff

 

[Gnomey]

Lovely work so far!

 

[Snautzer01]

Your Fosdick ? at 17:04